Medical malpractice: India
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. |
Introduction
Raj Chengappa
November 15, 2013
For years, the medical profession in India had neglected the warning symptoms. Shielded by flaccid regulatory authorities and a near comatose judicial system, the four lakh-strong community of doctors was almost immune to charges of malpractice.
Even when the problem grew to serious proportions, they failed to resort to corrective surgery. Now, aggrieved patients are beginning to wield the scalpel. Especially after a ruling made by the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission that medical services were liable under the powerful Consumer Protection Act of 1986.
Here's an alarming statistic: 98,000 deaths from medical injuries occur in India every year, reports an ongoing NABH study. Here's another: medico-legal cases have gone up by 400 per cent in the Supreme Court in the last 10 years, according to legal resource, Manupatra. Patients are afraid of an uncaring medical system. Doctors are terrified of assertive patients. Hospital life is under scrutiny, and with it the authority and autonomy of doctors. "Doctors are afraid," says Dr Arvind Kumar, chief of robotic and chest surgery at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in Delhi. "The trust factor between doctors and patients is slowly coming down and there is no solution in sight."
"Negligent doctors need to be punished. But medical errors are also often 'system errors' and not the result of an individual physician's negligence," says Dr K. Srinath Reddy, former head of cardiology with AIIMS and currently president of Public Health Foundation of India. The scientific basis of good clinical practice depends on combining a well-gathered history of illness, physical signs and results of tests into an estimation of probabilities of possible diagnoses, he explains. While medicine is not an exact science, which always gives a 'yes' or 'no' answer, the 'art' of medicine lies in converting scientific evidence to standard management guidelines created by expert bodies, for all practitioners to follow. "Apart from minimising errors and avoiding unnecessary tests and treatments, adherence to guidelines forms the best defence against allegations of medical negligence," he adds.
The buzz among doctors is also on crippling compensations. In the latest issue of the British Medical Journal, Indian doctors have come head to head. "In India, healthcare is supposed to be regulated by a quasi-judicial medical council that has failed to protect against widespread negligent and irrational treatment," writes Dr Kunal Saha, a US-based doctor who received 'historic' justice-an unprecedented compensation of Rs.11.5 crore-in October 2013, for medical negligence that caused his 36-yearold wife Anuradha's death in 1998. "Large payouts awarded by the courts of law may be the only way to instill accountability for wayward doctors and to save lives."
A bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and H.S. Bedi had pointed out the need to protect doctors from "malicious prosecution": "It is our bounden duty and obligation of the civil society to ensure that medical professionals are not unnecessarily harassed or humiliated so that they can perform their professional duties without fear and apprehension."
Change will require looking at medical practice and malpractice in a new light: not just at material costs, but that the trust that exists between patients and doctors remains sacred.
Compensation for medical negligence
The Times of India, Jul 02 2015
SC awards Rs 1.8 crore to teen blinded as baby by doctors
Dad fought for 18 years after getting just Rs 5L
Dhananjay Mahapatra
Ordering a 36-fold 4 increase in compensation, the Supreme Court asked the Tamil Nadu gov ernment and a state-owned hospital at Egmore in Chennai to pay Rs 1.80 crore to the parents of a child who had lost her eyesight within a year of birth 18 years ago due to the negligence of doctors. The child was born 10 weeks prematurely to V Krishnakumar and his wife in August 1996 at the government hospital for women and children. But the neonatal expert and the paediatrician at the hospital never warned the parents that all babies born prematurely were prone to retinopathy of pre maturity (RoP) and that if early preventive measures were not taken, it could re sult in blindness. The parents visited US for surgery But the light in her eyes could not be restored, which had gone out because of medical negligence at the government hospital at the time of her birth. Krishnakumar filed a case under Consumer Protection Act in February 1998 before National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission in New Delhi seeking Rs 20 lakh towards airfare, medical expenses and stay in the US, Rs 30 lakh towards future treatment and Rs 50 lakh for pain, loss and mental agony .
Though a medical team from AIIMS confirmed negligence on part of the hospital and the two doctors, the national commission awarded just Rs 5 lakh as compensation.
Appearing for Krishnakumar, advocate Nikhil Nayyar argued that the commission failed to take into account the actual expenses incurred by the parents for the treatment of the girl. Nayyar also said the award failed to consider the money required for future treatment and compensation for the prolonged period of mental agony of the child and her parents.
A bench of Justices J S Khehar and S A Bobde ordered the state and other respondents to pay Rs 1.38 crore as compensation and Rs 42 lakh as reimbursement of medical expenses, taking the total award to Rs 1.80 crore.
